It was killer weekend for film events in San Antonio.

Friday there was a screening of one of my favorite movies, Bajo California: El Límite del Tiempo, with the writer/director, Carlos Bolado, in attendance. I only found out about this Thursday. It was at the Instituto Cultural de Mexico in the Hemisfair complex. (If you can track this down, watch it. Film as art is such a rare commodity, and sadly it is so often found to be created by non-American filmmakers.)

I had to forgo meeting Carlos Bolado. I had the San Antonio Local Film Festival on my calendar since its very inception.

I’ll get to SAL in a moment.

But to continue the litany of film stuff … there was also the Manhattan Shorts Film Festival. It had its kick-off Friday night over at Urban-15. There were screenings Saturday night. Also, Sunday afternoon.

Also, there was the Adelante Film Forum, put on by the San Antonio chapter of NALIP (the National Association of Latino Independent Producers) — a two day series of workshops. I signed up.

And, as a part of the Adelante, there was a screening of Jumping Off Bridges, by Kat Chandler and Stacy Schoolfield. Saturday night at El Tropicano Hotel. I’ve been wanting to see Stacy and Kat’s movie for over a year, but I keep missing the opportunities — this time around I had agreed to volunteer at the Manhattan Shorts screening that night.

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I got off work a bit early so I could get to the Aztec Theater to help out for SAL. Again, I opted to take the bus. It’s very convenient. I’m four blocks from the bus stop, and the bus drops me off two blocks from the Aztec. And even though I think the new bus price of a dollar is outrageous, it’s the way to go. No expensive parking garage. No circling block after block, hoping for a meter (free after 6 pm). Just a little bas ride.

Dar showed up a bit after me. A few of her other volunteers were milling about, waiting for her to park her car.

Soon the complimentary beer and wine arrived. A keg of beer, and loads of wine bottles. As the volunteers were given their assignments — box office, refreshments, ushers, photogs, and such — I took to my role as the liaison to the projection booth. There were three DVDs I needed to make sure to get up to the guys working the tech up in the booth. Brant Bumpers had an extended version of his Heinz promo spec commercial. Brant showed up just a few minutes after me. I put the DVD into my pocket and looked around for either Bryan or Michael. We still didn’t have a copy of the post-SAL feature, Dr. “S” Battles the Sex Crazed Reefer Zombies. When Michael finally arrived, he leaned down and whispered into my ear, “Bryan’s at home burning the DVD — he’s three-quarters done.” And then Michael lifted his eyes and spied, I dunno, the San Antonio equivalent of Swoosie Kurtz. “Sweetheart! I haven’t seen you in AGES!” And I’m left staring at my empty hands. And then there was Pete. His doubly-accepted film fest promo hadn’t worked on the Aztec’s system. I asked Dar. She told me he was bringing a newly burned DVD. I called up Pete. “Yeah, we’re just about to leave. Is there any food there?” he asked. I explained there was just beer and wine. But it was free. I guess he and Lisa had fled when the babysitter arrived, and hadn’t yet had dinner. Dar came up and said I needed to see the award. She’s already told me about it. She had an artist friend, Albert Rivera, who works in metal design the piece. Shaped like a laurel leaf crown, but made out of prickly pear cactus.

The problem is, Dar couldn’t find it. We checked under the beverage table. Looked in the box office booth. Finally she realized it must still be in her car, and off she went (no doubt glad to escape, even for just a few minutes, from all the demands of volunteers, Aztec employees, well-wishing audience members who had begun appearing, and a few members of the press.

I went into the theater proper to see if Andy Miller and Erin Zayko were okay with the arrangements. They were the MCs of the event. Andy had a stack of note cards, and he wondered if there would be enough ambient light to refer to his notes. There would be a spot light hitting him, and it might be hard to read. He seemed unfazed and said he’d just make a point to memorize his notes.

Back downstairs, I saw Lisa. She said Pete was parking the car. I took the DVD and headed up to the projection booth. If there is one complaint I have about the Aztec, it’s that trying to get the attention of the folks inside the projection booth is a real pain. It’s a big, split-level space inside there. And I found myself having to hammer pretty loud to get them to unlock and let me in.

But we began on time. Dar had some preliminary bits screening while the house lights were still up. A sponsor’s promo. It was followed by Carlos’ music video. And then Pete’s SAL promo trailer. I did a quick and dirty head count and came to about 150. The theater holds about 485, I began to worry for Dar. She needed more paying patrons to cover the cost of the venue. Hopefully more people were still coming in.

And then the show began. Andy and Erin gave some basic introductory remarks. Andy then motioned to the guys up in the booth to begin the screening. Sam Lerma’s SAL promo, They’ll Suck You Dry, was supposed to play with the lights down. But the house lights remained up. I did my best to set things straight, but it took awhile. But by the time the first short film began, Bryan Ramirez’s excellent narrative, Nunca Sabes, things were as they should be.

And as I have seen Nunca Sabes four or five times already, I headed down to the lobby to see what was going on.

Bryan Ortiz showed up, bleary-eyed from four days of sleepless editing, with his newest cut of Dr. S, fresh from his DVD burner. Here is a shot of Dar, Bryan, and Druck — the Mistress of SAL, standing beside the brains behind Film Classics Productions, a very winning combination Friday night.

But it wasn’t just Bryan. Other people were still coming in. At some point, the volunteers had to start turning people away. That means there was almost 500 people! Very fucking impressive. I say that from my position of a novice impresario.

Great job, Dar!!

I could give a write up about the films, but it’s late. Maybe some other time.

At the intermission, I took the DVD of Dr. S up to the projection booth. And on my way back down, I saw someone I knew. I stopped to chat. At a lull, I heard, from behind me, “Well, if it isn’t Mr. Bosse.” I turned around to see filmmaker Jessica Torres. She was seated with three other members of the iChingoa team from the 48 Hour Film Project. The young woman seated beside her made some mention that I had attributed someone else’s name to her on one of my blog entries. I apologized and made sure to get her name in writing. She was Sarai Rodiguez. Of course! You’ll remember her from the short film, Trick or Tweet. You know, where she plays the witchy girl whose witchy mom turns her beau into a little chicken. Sorry about that, Sarai.

When Dr. S began, the audience responded very favorably. I only wish someone would have grabbed the microphone before the lights went down and ask if all the zombies in attendance would please stand. There were loads of actors (not to mention “actors”) playing zombies in Bryan’s movie. And I only saw two people show up in zombie make-up.

I eschewed the invites to an after party or two. I had to get up early for day one of the Adelante Film Forum.

Pete and Lisa Barnstrom were kind enough to drive me home. Here’s Pete slowing down just enough to allow me to hop into the passenger seat as he fended off the paparazzi.

A very successful evening.

I didn’t have to work today. Ah, yes. I remember this sweet freedom. Work, it’s really for rubes. Really.

I met Dar at the Aztec Theater. She was there with Adam, a volunteer who is helping to promote the SAL Film Festival. We were waiting on Bryan and Druck. They were going to play a rough edit of Dr. S on the Aztec’s system. One of the managers of the Aztec took us into the theater proper. I wasn’t aware that you could enter from the ground floor of the lobby. The only other time I had been to the Aztec (during the San Antonio Underground Film Festival), the audience entered from the mezzanine level. I thought the lower part was sealed off. But no. This is where the the organ sits, as well as all sorts of kitschy faux Aztec details, such as a gigantic circular meso american calendar which hangs over some sort of alter or something. I gather dry ice fog, or something along those lines, comes out of the floor. I can dig it.

When Bryan and Druck showed up, we went into the projection booth. All the Aztec crew were wonderful.

I got to see about three quarters of Doctor “S” Battles the Sex Crazed Reefer Zombies. It’s still a very rough cut. I was glad to see it. Filmmakers are rarely privileged to see their colleagues works in such raw states. It’s a shame, really. I learned a lot watching Bryan’s early edit. I consider him to be a very accomplished and wildly talented filmmaker. And I was able to glean an idea as to how he shoots, edits, and plans out his work.

There is still shit loads of work to be done. But I’m convinced Bryan will get it all done. I just can’t see that he’ll have any time to sleep. It’s damn impressive to push a feature through post production at this rate. But it’s shaping up very well. Funny, quirky, and damn stylish. Even if you are a zombie film bigot, such as myself, there is one comically gory scene that will have you choking on your Good & Plenty, but in a good way.

It’s shaping up into a wonderful event. I’ve been listening to Dar talk about this thing for quite awhile. A year at least. I am so proud of what she has been able to do, practically all on her own.

And for all you assholes who are thinking about NOT showing up, I feel someone should remind you: free beer and wine.

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The San Antonio Public Library (my branch, at least) no longer stamps their books. They give you a printed receipt, just like at the 7-11. I don’t care for this. What’s the problem? The price of ink pads are skyrocketing or something? So, I checked out three books. And tucked in one of them was a receipt that, when you read the fine print, would tell you when it was due.

I had to go downtown and pay $3.50 for overdue books. What a racket.

However, I decided to take my camera in and shoot a few snaps of the Chihuly sculpture. I’m not really a big fan of Dale Chihuly, but I always smile when I see his work — especially these sorts of larger installations.

I love almost everything about the downtown San Antonio public library. The playful postmodern architecture, the garish color scheme (referred to by the locals as the “enchilada building”), the meandering water sculpture, the grand central enclosed atrium, the upward flowing Chachuly piece — now if they could just allocate some funds for books and media.

(Click on the tumbnails for bigger images.)

I checked out three DVDs. This afternoon I watched one of them. Robert Anton Wilson: Maybe Logic. It’s a series of interviews with Wilson, interspersed with some of his lectures, as well as bits with his colleagues and friends. It was finished in, I believe, 2002. Many of the clips were of Wilson very infirmed, as his post polio syndrome began to lay him low — yet he never slipped into pessimism or self pity. It’s a bittersweet portrait of a major counter cultural icon.

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Late in the afternoon I printed up eleven copies of a two page prose piece and headed off to the monthly Gemini Ink free writers work shop. This is the second months that we’ve had so many attendees that we had to break up into two groups.

Jim, who runs the workshops, decided to break the group in half by pointing to those who were seated at the right side of the crowded table. We were to go into another room, and share our work there. One of us was selected as the facilitator. I was okay with that, because Michael was in my group, and he’s one of my favorite writers who shows up at these things. The only other writer I was looking forward to seeing was Elizabeth. I’d heard her read once before. She’s working on a book which if it isn’t strictly speaking a young adult novel does indeed involve an adolescent as the central protagonist. But most important, she has a strong voice. Yes, she’s a very good writer, but there’s a lot of good writers out there. A clear, distinctive voice, however, is a rare thing indeed. She’s got that. But she wasn’t at the table.

We moved to the other room and rearranged the chairs and set up a table. There were seven of us. And like most of these events it was a mixed bag of good, bad, and indifferent. Michael read a poem which is embedded in one of his huge, brilliant unpublished novels. But I didn’t much care for it. It was a bit too technical. But a surprise was this guy who had never before attended. He read from a work in progress — essay, short story, novel? He’s not yet sure. I wish I had got his name. He’s an older guy. Maybe in his early sixties. Damn good writing. Damn good reading.

When we were heading out, I noticed that Elizabeth was sitting in the other room. I guess she came late. I waited around (the other group was larger than ours, and they ended a bit later).

I asked if she would give me a copy of what she had brought to read. She handed me a copy. And she asked for a copy of what I had read. We chatted for a while, and then headed out.

For those who are curious, I wimped out this time around. I started two stories which fit within my “fictional blog” cycle, but they really were sucking. So, I followed a path of lesser resistance. I turned to an old email (which, actually, was printed in this blog almost a year ago in a somewhat different fashion). With a few slight augmentations, I printed it up and read it to my group.

Below the break is that version.

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Michelangelo Antonioni is Dead by Erik Bosse

Some of my clearest memories of my teen years were those spent in a darkened repertory cinema in walking distance from my home. There awaited me foreign films unlike anything that made it to my TV set. I’d drag my friends along, but they rarely accepted my invitations twice. They fidgeted in their seats as though they were waiting on the dentist. What they found tedious, I found thrilling.

Some of the devices that seem to have irked them were, in fact, simply innovative camera work. Such as a couple sitting at a cafe where the camera never leaves the tight shot of a cup of coffee as the dialogue unfolds. Ah, the economy of the visual language! Or, the opposite, where the characters engage in animated conversations about art or philosophy while moving quickly down the sidewalk, puffing aggressively on cigarettes. The camera rushes to keep up. The scene is disjointed with frantic jump cuts. Such energy and passion! Sadly, my friends yearned for stories of gigantic, ravenous sharks, or, even better, robots from a galaxy far, far away.

Why, I wondered, couldn’t they generate the same enthusiasm for a story about, say, a middle aged Italian man who paces in a hotel room, immaculate in slacks and a white shirt with tie? He flails about with a lit cigarette, hectoring an eighteen year old sex-pot wearing pajamas and sitting on the bed with her arms crossed in silent and accusing petulance. The man is probably wearing sunglasses, and he often stops in his tirade to momentarily preen in the hotel mirror. He will begin spanking the girl any minute now, but only after the camera has drifted its attention to the pigeon pecking about on the window ledge.

It was all sweet eye-candy to me. How about a picnic with young people? They are the slumming bourgeoisie, and are dressed accordingly: no suit coats or hats, ties loosened, cuffs unbuttoned. Women wear dresses and are barefoot — or maybe they have on tight black toreador pants and rumpled blouses. Turtlenecks and berets are always allowed. Cigarettes are items to hide behind, never enjoyed. Picnics must have wine and long loaves of crusty bread. Cheese and fresh fruit are allowable options.

Montages are the very life blood of these movies, and they can use any of the items already mentioned. Coffee, cigarettes, wine, etc. If there are quick shots of nature, the stamp of the modern industrial world should always be present: sparrows wash themselves in water pooled in a rut caused by a car tire; butterflies nose around the blossoms of a pear tree as a passenger plane roars across the sky; a field of barley undulates in the breeze, and the camera dollies left to reveal the mud-splattered Citroen, its rear bumper jacked up — a grimly petulant eighteen year old girl in tight black toreador pants changes a flat tire as her forty-year-old boyfriend leans against the front bumper sipping a cappuccino while in the back-seat the girl’s younger, effete brother lounges with his feet out the window while he smokes a cigarette and reads Balzac.

A misspent youth watching all these films invariably carves out a little realm in the brain where simulated versions of Truffaut, Antonioni, or Fellini can be cobbled together in real time in the mind’s own repertory cinema.

I fancy I can conjure up a short one right now.

We open with a tight shot of a masculine hand reaching across the cafe table to brush a fly off a pastry on a plate. Extreme close up of a single tear rolling down a young woman’s face. Oblique angle up at a church clock tower. Slow pan of birds splashing around in a fountain in the public square. Extremely tight shot of a masculine finger stroking the cigarette pack placed aside the pastry plate. Full shot in profile of a waiter at the back door of a cafe enjoying a cigarette — he’s deep in the shadows thrown by an adjacent building, but when he exhales, the smoke hits the sunlight as pure white. Wide low shot of the parish priest riding on his bicycle — he bounces over the cobblestones of the square and he rolls to a gentle stop beside two men sitting at a table near a fruit stand. Two-shot of the men looking up from their chess game. They smile at the camera (the priest). Tight shot of the priest smiling with boyish innocence. Two-shot of the men turning back to their game. Overhead shot of the chess board. A hand comes in and hovers, uncertain, over the white queen. Tight shot of the priest — shocked, he leans in slow and breathless. Tight shot on a pretty girl’s face. A pretty hand comes in and wipes a tear away. Tight shot of a masculine hand fishing a cigarette from the pack near the pastry. A pretty hand comes in and softly drapes over the man’s hand. Low tight shot of the church clock. Ten-thirty. It chimes once with a terrible reverberating clang. Medium shot of the fountain. The birds scatter in a panic. Extreme close up of a finger descending onto the white queen. It makes firm contact. Wide shot of the table near the fruit stand. One man stands and begins shouting. The priest crosses himself. Wide shot of the cafe table. The man stands abruptly, knocking over his chair. He snatches up his cigarettes and storms off. Close up of the girl. She’s gathered herself together now, with a sort of petulant resolve. She looks around toward the entrance of the cafe. “Garçon!” she shouts. Medium shot of the waiter at the back door. He looks at his cigarette. Tight shot of the cigarette. It’s just a little stub. Wide shot of the waiter. He tosses the cigarette to the ground and walks inside. Tight shot of the cigarette still smoldering on the ground next to a pile of garbage. A pigeon flutters in and begins pecking at a piece of pastry in the dirt next to the smoldering cigarette.

FINI

It’s a dull grind sitting day after day shackled to a computer making money for a hoard of faceless assholes I will (thankfully) never meet. How the hell can you folks do this?

Five days out of seven. Eight hours out of 24. Why the hell aren’t the suicide rates higher?

My current assignment was to have ended Friday (yesterday). But I dragged my carcass back into the beast’s belly this morning for half a day of overtime. And then, come Tuesday, I transition into another assignment. It threatens to suck on my soul for two more weeks.

My idea of running off to Mexico for November (National Novel Writing Month) probably isn’t going to happen. So, I signed up for a novel writing course at Gemini Ink. It’s a small class. Only five students. And I don’t know if I’ll make the cut. I sent in a short piece of fiction. They demand a work sample to help the instructor make up his mind. If I don’t get selected, I won’t feel too bad. I’m putting my credit card on the line here, ’cause this class don’t come cheap (thought significantly cheaper than even the cheapest month in Mexico, if you take into account the bus ticket down there and back).

The instructor is David Liss. I had never heard of the fellow. I just now — this very moment — put his name into the great meatgrinder called Google. Here is what the gentleman’s Wikipedia pages says:

“David Liss (born 1966) is a Jewish American writer of historical novels set in the business world, and of contemporary political fiction. His first book was A Conspiracy of Paper (2001), for which he won the 2001 Edgar Award for Best First Novel. He is a vegan.”

Dear me. But I should point out that in the current Gemini Ink catalogue, there is a quote from one of his books. It’s a passage of maybe 85 works. A thumbnail, for sure, but a damn well-written thumbnail.

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I’m going to have to squeeze the Adelante Film Forum into my upcoming film weekend. It’s going to be a tight fit.

Adelante aside, there is the San Antonio Local Film Festival (aka, SAL). Sadly, I have no film playing (although Carlos’ music video titled “evoL,” featuring the band November 2nd, was shot and edited by me. Friday, the 28th, at the swanky Aztec Theater. Cheap at ten bucks. You don’t just get the SAL show (eight shorts by local filmmakers), but you also get the world premier of Bryan Ortiz’s first feature film, Doctor “S” Battles the Sex Crazed Reefer Zombies.

That same evening is the opening night of the Manhattan Short Film Festival, being held at Urban-15. The 12 short films (from all over the world) will all screen three times: Friday evening (the 28th), Saturday evening, and Sunday afternoon. The audience gets to vote for their favorite. San Antonio is just one of dozens of venues screening these films: this coming weekend they will show to audiences all over the country and abroad. Check it out. I think I’m supposed to be on a discussion panel. I said yes to Herman, but I don’t think he told me when.

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I dropped a miniDV tape off with Oscar Hernandez of LatiFilm fame. He’s producing a show on, I believe, LATV, one of the local Spanish language TV stations. He interviewed me the Sunday before last. I spoke mainly about my trip last summer down to San Miguel de Allende and the short doc I made with Deborah and Ramon. But because the section with me will be fairly short, I gave him a copy not only of the 14.5 minute Dia de los Locos documentary, but I also my little experimental piece, El Jardin, which, at 3.5 minutes might be more useful. Besides, it features Rosalinda Coto, and who could say no to her.

We’ll see how it comes out.

Oscar is an interesting guy. He’s a promoter type through and through. As he told me straight off, “I’m not a filmmaker.” He wants to produce. That’s fine, because this city needs producers a hell of a lot more than it needs more filmmakers.

He bemoaned a particular project he had been working on that fell through. I’ve heard the story from both sides of this project. You bet — it’s a very small town. All parties seem relatively unscathed (if not unruffled), and they are all continuing on with their works. And so it goes.

Oscar pitched an idea to me that sounded damn ambitious, yet quite do-able. I told him to keep me in the loop.

I have a project of my own in mind. I need to flesh it out and create a clearly defined proposal before I start getting too deep with it. It seems too choppy to mould into a novel or a feature film. I think a TV show is the only way to go. I think it would play well as a bicultural cross-over show. A sort of Chicano X-Files. Perhaps do as AJ and Rick did with Alamo Heights, SA, and shoot every scene in both English and Spanish, so that both markets can be targeted.

The working title is the Cucuy Club (thank you Carlos). The Cucuy Club is a
southside ice house where Alejandro Carrasco hangs out, drinks, and, with his laptop, writes his popular blog, also called the Cucuy Club. He’s dedicated his life to researching the local latino folktales — those quirky supernatural cucuys. The sneaky chupacabra, la lechusa, the devil at the dance, ghosts galore, the ambiguous bulto, and several weirdoes of my own design.

Alejandro meets, of course, Amy Pearson, a post doc student working on her dissertation on South Texas folklore. She’s an unimaginative culturalist, who wants her oral histories pure and authentic. However, Alejandro is more concerned with what his readers might most want to hear, and that isn’t anything about primary sources and footnotes. The more hits on his site, the more ad revenue, and the easier it is for him to pay his tab at the Cucuy Club.

What intrigues me about this potential project is that it can be used as a showcase for the city. Characters meet in local clubs where local music is played. They talk out their ideas while walking though a gallery filled with the works of local artists. They interact in local restaurants and bars. And all the while the cheesy storylines play out against a cultural backdrop where traditionalism conflicts with postmodern consumerism. Faith verses science. Latinos confront anglos.

See if I can shape this up by the time the Adelante rolls around next weekend.

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Here are some shots of the little park where you can find the Espada Aqueduct. It was a nice day for a bike ride along the mission trail system.

There’s this freaky pecan tree in the park that seems to have arched its back, and rooted itself back into the ground.

(click for larger images)

Sadly, it’s not doing so well. The midpoint — the belly — is rotting away. I dub thee ostrich tree! All kneel. Kneel, I say!!!!

Last week I attended an art opening of one of my neighbors. Marlys Dietrick. She has a show in the Blue Star Arts Complex. It runs through this month at Three Walls Gallery. The show is called “Win, Lose, or Draw.” Marlys had a show earlier in the summer at the Flight Gallery. I provided a tiny audio element to the show. That earlier show had some great work. Drawings of imaginary creatures. And she has continued in this realm. The postcard advertising the show that she stuck in my mailbox (thus saving some postage) displayed two strange critters. Their images were on playing cards. When I snagged that card from my mailbox I really hoped that there would be 52 images in the show, and that there would be, for sale, limited edition decks of cards.

I got my wish. When I pushed into the gallery (the Blue Star is a very chaotic place during First Friday), I saw Marlys, looking glamorous in a black dress — she was talking to a small crowd of well-wishers. I leaned in and saw that there were indeed a few packs of playing cards in little plastic boxes.

I stepped into the space and there were the original pieces. All 52 (well, I believe there was a joker or two, so, maybe there were more). They ran the length of one of the gallery’s three walls on a little shelf. I love that she did the original art as miniatures. There was no scaling down. Card-sized originals, turned into card-sized reproductions. I only wish I had $60 bucks for a pack. Limited to, um, I forget — but under a hundred sets. Sounds like a deal (so to speak).

She had managed to provided something for each of the three walls. The cards took up one. And on the opposite wall was a very large colored drawing of another of her weird creatures. And on the third wall was a giant chalkboard with three categories concerning the big piece. The gallery patrons could write their own assumptions in chalk, thus defining just what that big critter might be.

I wasn’t feeling like spending too much time wandering the galleries. But I’m glad I showed up for Marlys’ opening. I also saw Herman Lira. He’s helping Urban-15 to promote their up-coming Manhattan Film Festival (still the best annual short film showcase to be found in this town). I took some of the small fliers from Herman and headed home.

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I have to get up damn early while working at the Company. I’m a working man. And to those who’ve never done such, it really sucks. For the next three weeks or so, I will have to make sure I am keeping my timecard consistent. The problem with this gig is that I have to wait two or three weeks to get my first check. I’m hoping this coming Monday will put a check in my mailbox. I’m tapped out. I scrounged up all my change a few days back and fed them into one of those coins-for-cash machines (since banks no longer take coins), and, thus fiscally flush, I have been living on Pik-Nik 50 cent tacos, until I went bust this a.m. Luckily, Deborah was having an art opening this evening for a new photo series. After I fed the last ten nickels into the parking meter near the UTSA downtown campus, I headed to the UTSA gallery to load up on the free eats.

Deborah’s series is called Hidden Middens. She roamed around her west-side neighborhood snapping pictures of the garbage that people put out for the municipal pick-up. I suspect she was using her cheapy point-n-shoot digital camera. She printed the images as black and white photos onto canvas; pulled the canvas onto stretchers; and added color with oil paints. Deborah has been working on this process for at least three series that I know of. And, from a technical stand-point, what I particularly like is that she thins out the oil paint until it’s almost like working with watercolors. The colors are sedate and vibrant at the same time. The canvases are, as I recall, about 12 x 18 inches. 14 canvases in all. They were hung in a grid. There’s a real art to hanging artwork. And the student, intern, or whomever hung Deborah’s show had yet to master that art. But the work itself was really wonderful. Deborah told me that UTSA had decided to buy some of the pieces for their collection. Either 8, or the full 14. She was surrounded by her fans and I didn’t get the full story. But that’s so wonderful! She deserves ever ounce of recognition.

It was actually a two-person show. Ramin Samandari, Deborah’s boyfriend, had ten huge black and white photo collages. They, like most of the work I’ve seen of his, were a combination of striking images, with a ghostly text superimposed. A previous series I’d seen had the poetry of Rumi (in English and Farsi) atop heavily processed and contrasty images. Beautiful work, but it always seemed that the image and the text components were fighting for my attention. These new works seem to merge text and images tighter. Close-up shots of cacti, very strong contrast, and the text (Baudelaire) had the look of quick but neat notations done with a grease-pencil on a glass plate. The text takes a subservient graphic role, representing information — more of a whispered conversation overheard in a crowded room which you have given up trying to understand.

I think both Deborah and Ramin are doing their strongest work I’ve yet to see from either.

And the free food was excellent. There were some sort of puff pastry triangles stuffed with goat cheese and brined grape leaves — also a huge fruit plate with three types of melons. UTSA does it right. Well, maybe they should have held back on the fruit plate and used that cash to pay a professional to hang the art.

At seven Sunday morning I awoke to the moving van in my driveway. My new neighbor was moving in. I’d fallen asleep on the sofa reading. And, as it was way too early to face the day, I limped into the bathroom, downed some aspirin (I’m beginning to resemble Robert Blake in “In Cold Blood”). I dragged a fan into the bedroom, and hoped that it’s noise would cover up the sound of the movers. It did. And the aspirin worked it magic. I got up at nine, my knee not so painful. I listened to some podcasts from the Skepticality site and sipped on a large cappuccino. Eventually I had to walk the neighbor’s dog. And then I had to go help Carlos move.

I stopped at the PikNik for two 50 cent tacos de papas rancheros, and I headed my way north. The only CD I had in the truck was a fairly boring album by David J. I tried the radio, but when I got some hate-filled hot air from Duncan Hunter, the vile Republican candidate who won the Texas straw poll, I had to do what I always do when turning on the radio — I had to turn it the fuck off. Everything that is wrong with America is embraced by Hunter as everything he thinks is wonderful about our country. Again, I would thrill to think that the fundamentalist mythos of these swine, what with its notion of heaven and hell, was fact. Were it all true, the satanic jackasses like Hunter would eventually be roasting in the fires of hades for all of eternity.

At Carlos’ place, I was a bit overwhelmed by the amount of stuff to be moved. He had two rooms filled, floor to ceiling, with boxes. And they were mostly small boxes in a variety of dimensions. Also there were two rooms where nothing seemed to have been yet boxed up. A computer still running. A fish tank filled and burbling away.

Shelley had taken Rockie to the new place in Sequin. Carlos’ parents were up from the Valley, visiting — they were also at the new place. Because of a cock-up with U-Haul, Carlos couldn’t get the truck until three in the afternoon. I arrived at about 12:30. Me and Carlos loaded up his van and my truck. Pete soon showed up and we loaded up his truck. And then we began pulling stuff from the house and staging it in the driveway. We were pretty confident that the morning rains were gone for good. Blue skies with nothing but little puffy clouds.

At three me and Carlos drove to the U-Haul place. The smiling, polite guys who worked there were all either massively stoned or else they were still adjusting their meds towards that sweet spot with regards to their Prozac prescriptions. The four guys drifted unconcerned about the place, and it took 45 fucking minutes to politely over-charge us, hook up a tow bar, unhook the tow bar because they decided it wouldn’t handled Carlos’ van, and then when I opened the back of the truck and pointed out that the heavy-duty dolly Carlos had paid for wasn’t inside, they said they’d fetch it. They never did. Me and Carlos had to go inside and wheel one out on our own. I could understand if they were busy, but they weren’t.

Back at the house, Pete had lugged out another hundred boxes or so. And then Wendy showed up with her van. She had a friend, her teenage brother, and one of his friends. We put them all to work. Things began to move pretty fast.

One of the boxes made me smile. It was obviously a gift. A fondu set. Like really, no one buys a fondu set for himself. I could be wrong. But it was the brand name that struck me. “Tuscany Fondu.” And, let me just get this out in the open. Of all the strippers, exotic dancers, burlesque queens, and ecdysiasts who I have appraised and assayed over the years, the one who took me to that heady and intensely fearful place where you think that, whoa, dude, it can’t get any steamier and spicier than this, would have to be, no contest, Tuscany Fondu.

But I digress.

Shelley showed up. She set to breaking down the huge fish tank.

And then the rain began. We moved as fast as possible. We all got soaked, but soon we had the mammoth truck filled. The problem was, there are still a lot of stuff in the house. But Carlos decided that we should begin to caravan to the new place.

It was a long drive. The new place isn’t really in Sequin. It turns out it’s about ten miles north of the town, and then another five miles through farm roads and unpaved roads. Maybe closer to Luling.

Very isolated. But the place is nice. It’s a prefab home. About the size of two doublewides assembled together. Central air. A well with an automated pump.

The area countryside is a bit too generic for my tastes. It’s on the edge of the coastal plains. Mostly post oaks, some mesquite and hackberry. Carlos has mentioned farming on the place. I could see that. It’s flat and open. But if I were to buy a plot of land in this general part of the country, I’d be looking at land solidly in the hill country. I like the cedars, prickly pears, the hills, the nasty outcroppings of rock, and the vistas. But Carlos and Shelley seem happy. And Rockie took me on a little mini tour. She seems to love it. The place is in a pocket of south Texas oil fields I did not know of (the “Luling Oilfield,” according to the Handbook of Texas (Online) — the bible of all things Texportant*). There’s a prevailing odor of natural gas that you find in Texas oil fields from Iraan to Vidor. Pretty stinky, but I guess the locals get used to it. The place does seem to be producing the stuff. There are those pumpjacks all over the place — bobbing their giant insect heads up and down, bringing the crude to the surface.

One of the more amusing things was that Shelley removed the fish from her aquarium and put them into an unsealed styrofoam cooler with a piece of cardboard laid across the top as a lid. I was a bit perplexed. We had some plastic coolers which could be sealed. And there was also the traditional prospect of plastic bags. Fish are transported that way all the time, as I recall. Anyway, I decided to snap a picture of this young man with a cooler in his lap, because I knew I’d have a nice opportunity an hour later to photo him with wet pants from sloshing fish water.

I was not to be proven incorrect.

Wendy and her crew quickly made good their escape after unloading her small van. Me, Carlos, Pete, Shelley, and Carlos’ father eventually emptied the moving truck.

Carlos has plenty of odd stuff. Here we see Rockie struggling under the weight of a prostetic leg. Carlos reminded me that it was a prop from one of is films.

Yeah. Prop. I use that all the time to explain away, you know, stuff … and things ….

I made it home about 11:30 pretty damn beat.

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*”Texportant.” I was a bit embarrassed coining this phrase just moments ago as I added polish to the post. But it was so dumb, I thought to leave it in the blog entry. And then, curiosity nibbled. I did a Google search, expecting, I dunno, maybe 20 hits. It’s Madison-Avenue-obvious, right? Not by a long toss. It’s a pure grade “A” Google virgin. So, folks, get crackin’ with that texportant.com; the incorporated town of Texportant, Texas; or, hows about, Texportant Industries — you can manufacture ceramic grommets, for all I care. Sir, or madame, consider it a gift! From me, to you. Texportant. But act soon, or you’ll be snookered by some out-of-state upstart who’ll snatch up that domain name and push his on-line gift items down our collective craw. Oh, you know the ilk I mean. The Tony Lamas of Minnesota. But he goes by many names. You’ll know him by the umbrella in his gun rack, his furtive attempts to nibble the corn husk wrapped around his tamales, or his incessant demand that you refer to his country-home on a huge tract of undeveloped land as a “ranch.” “Please, sir, could you use it in a sentence.” “It’s texportant, when speaking of that famous home just outside of Crawford, Texas, that we refrain from using the word ‘ranch’ until folk start lassoing and branding heifers on the property.”

I guess I need to call Carlos and see what time he needs me to help him move on Sunday. He, Shelly, and Rockie have finally found a place. It's way out in Seguin. I'm not sure how much help I can be. My knee isn't getting any better. The good thing, I suppose, about living alone — as well as being currently unemployed — is no one else is subjected to my Tourette's-like outburst of profanity when I do seemingly benign things such as lift my left leg to put on my pants, or make a move to depress the clutch on my truck while driving. On top of that, a cold has settled down on me, and I don't expect it to moisey off for a week or so. Actually, I just hobbled in from a trip to the HEB where I got a fifth of generic DayQuil, and that stuff's pretty impressive. It should get me through Sunday.

Carlos and Shelly have been looking for a place out in the country for some time. One of the reasons is so that they can have enough land for the horse that Carlos' father has given Rockie. It's been at the family farm down in the Rio Grande Valley until Carlos can get a big enough place. Carlos wrote a blog about his new place recently. He recalled one of the preliminary visits before the paperwork went through when he walked to the dead center of the property and just stood there, letting it all sink in. “I felt a calm come over me for the first time in two years and knew this was it.” As I read, I was there with him. The sense of peace, and the chance to commune with nature. But I almost forgot, I was reading one of Carlos' blogs. The next sentence put me straight: “Any horror movie could be made here.” That bit made me smile. It reminded me of what I told guests who came to visit my loft on the top floor of the ancient, dilapidated Continental Gin Building I had in Deep Ellum over a decade ago. I would muscle open the huge horizontally rolling door, and when we'd stepped into my space, I'd let it roll back, slamming it's massive weight against the cement pier that passed for a door jamb. A thumb across a single light switch would cause over a dozen banks of fluorescent lights to shuttered to life, dimly illuminating the 4,000 square foot space. “You understand that no one can hear your screams now,” I would causally say sotto voce as I walked across to check the answering machine beside my fridge. “What? Pardon? What was that you said???”

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Yesterday I finally got around to putting a load of laundry through my washing machine. Phil had returned from his overseas trip, and I no longer have access to his washer & drier which, at least in my opinion, was part of the whole dog sitting contract.

As I was pinning the clothes up on the line, I heard some distant thunder. Not a dark cloud in the sky. It was one of those cinematic moments. Some far off rumbling can do a couple of things well in a films soundtrack. It's great for foreshadowing — even if all it's foreshadowing is a thunderstorm. It can also give a sense of the prevalence of the natural world; it may never rain, but there is the potential chaos of nature still out there. I made the latter interpretation. This is common in San Antonio (though more common in the spring, but the weather patterns this summer were so fucked up, that all bets are now off) — moist air will march its way from the Texas costal plains or up from Mexico (almost always coming in from the south) and the scattered clouds (huge, though often sparsely clotting an otherwise blue sky) will occasionally coalesce and let loose with a deluge which is only dumped on a fifty acre plot of San Antonio.

Yesterday, my washing line was on that fifty acre plot of land that got soaked. Before I could run out and pull the clothes off the line, my street had become a river. Nothing I could do. I left them out there. They'd dry one day … right? Ten minutes later the rain stopped. Blue sky, birds singing. I decided to grab a late lunch at a Mexican diner two miles away. There, the streets were completely dry.

I would leave the clothes on the line over night. Maybe they would be dry the following afternoon.

And so today, around noon, I was catching up on some podcasts, and I heard thunder in the distance. I craned my neck to peer out the kitchen window. Blue skies, tiny white puffy clouds. But there it was, thunder again. I refused to make the same mistake twice. I might never have any dry clothes.

And so I put on some pants and headed outside. My porch was enshrouded by a miasma of cheap perfume. My first thought was that the sporty red Miata convertible parked out front was a new purchase by my landlady's daughter-in-law. She sometimes comes over to work on the property. But I was wrong. The car belongs to my new neighbor. Hey, I have a new neighbor! I wish people would tell me these things in advance. She was sitting on her porch on the north side of my house, smoking a cigarette (the odor of which could simply not dominate that of the perfume).

The biggest innovation in smoking trends (beyond those places where you can and cannot legally smoke) is that so many people now don't smoke in their own homes, but step outside onto their porches to smoke. Strange, really. What do they care? But the last seven people who lived in the other apartments in my building all smoked, yet they never did so inside their apartments.

Anyway, my neighbor introduced herself to me. I've lately been pretty good with names. But … I dunno. Valerie? Vickie? Velma Vandermark? I'll have to ask again. She seems nice enough. 40ish. Psychotherapist. Fancy car and a crappy apartment. There's a story there, I'm sure. But, because we're sharing a wall, I hope to hell that her story is a simple and quiet one.

Good thing I took down my slightly damp clothes. We had another deluge today. A bit longer lasting.

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I stopped by Tito's Tacos for a late lunch today. There is a new waitress that looks so much like Catherine Keener that I was suspicious that Ms. Keener was in town going underground to study for a role (or, Catherine's look-alike kid sister, Elizabeth). I no doubt managed to freak out the woman by staring at her so much. Not only do I think Catherine Keener's one of the more interesting actors working, I also think she's very beautiful.

I hope I didn't scare her off — she was very polite and nice, but I got a sense she'd never worked a waitress job before. Older novice waitresses seem to have a high attrition rate. If you see her, be kind, tip her well. I believe her name is Karen.

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When I posted my last short piece of prose, I received a comment from Jennifer Saylor.

“OK, that made me think of Tim Powers and James Blaylock. Damn, I really wish you’d write a science fiction novel already. A kind of sci-fi answer to Blaylock and Powers.”

I often find myself encountering literary references on Jennifer's blog about authors I know of … yet whose work I've never read.

And, so chagrinned, I visited the downtown library yesterday and checked out a book each by Powers and Blaylock.

(I should point out that, at one time, I owned a quasi-steam punk novel by Blaylock (“Lord Kelvin's Machine”), but I just couldn't get into it at the time and I guess I sold it.)

So now I'm dipping into Blaylock's “The Last Coin,” and Tim Powers' “Anubis Gates.” I decided to first crack the Blaylock novel. His prose is playful and fun to read, but it's ultimately as soulless as that of Frank Belknap Long. And therefore I'm alternately reading R. K. Narayan's “The Guide” to give me something to turn to that provides a deeper nourishment.

I think I understand what Jennifer was talking about. Powers and Blaylock play around with what I call “hidden histories.” Like John Vernon's “Peter Doyle,” which mishmashes history to fit a more tasty matrix, Powers and Blaylock use verifiable historical tidbits to bolster their imaginative fantasies.

This is something I've been involved in for at least 15 years. My stalled historical novel set in the Big Bend region in the 1870s had a time travel element as well as a fantasy subplot involving a giant sentient spider who was vaguely connected to the local folklore reaching back before the appearance of the Europeans.

But, back to my San Antonio pieces. I want to bring these “hidden history” elements to the forefront. I'm currently working, through my little prose pieces, on a new mythology of San Antonio which pumps up the fantasy elements. This city is famous for its ghosts — they're everywhere. San Antonio gave the world the millionaire cryptozoologist, Tom Slick. We also must admit giving birth to Whitley Strieber, the most famous UFO abductee. There are Latino Cucuys all over the place. This is ground zero for weirdness, at least in the state of Texas.